Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
The Internet

Submission + - Gamespot editor fired over review of Eidos game 2

PocketPick writes: Kotaku is reporting that following a unflatering review of the game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, long-time editor Jeff Gerstmann is no longer under the employment of video gaming website Gamespot and it's parent, CNET. Kane & Lynch, a game published by Eidos for the Xbox 360, PS3 & PC, has been heavily featured in flash, image and text advertisments on Gamespot's website since the release on November 13th, inevitably leading to questions whether or not Mr. Gerstmann's firing was motivated by pressure from Eidos.
The Courts

Submission + - Rochester judge holds RIAA evidence insufficient

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Judge David G. Larimer, presiding in Rochester, New York, has denied an RIAA application for default judgment on the ground that the RIAA's evidence was insufficient, in that it contained no details of actual downloads or distributions, and no sufficient evidence that defendant was in fact Kazaa user "heavyjeffmc@KaZaA". The decision (pdf) concluded that "there are significant issues of fact regarding the identification of the defendant from his alleged "online media distribution system" username". (In case you're unfamiliar with the term "online media distribution system", that's because it is a term the RIAA coined 4 years ago to describe p2p file sharing accounts in its lawsuits; the term is not known to have been used by anyone else anywhere else.) In August a similar RIAA default judgment motion was denied on the ground that the pleadings failed to allege sufficient factual details supporting a claim of copyright infringement, in a San Diego, California, case, Interscope v. Rodriguez."
Microsoft

Submission + - ISO Paralyzed by OOXML

Broken Standards writes: "For all intents and purposes, the ISO has been completely paralyzed. The ISO is no longer able to reach an agreement on any standard because all those new members who joined just to approve OOXML cannot be bothered to vote on anything else. Per ISO rules, any standard where more than half those eligible are non-voters, not even bothering to return an "abstain" vote, fails automatically. So the ISO is completely paralyzed, unable even to amend their voting rules, until the new members eventually get kicked out for inactivity. Hopefully, they will learn from this and forbid those inactive members from rejoining later."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Trying to Hide Info on Download Expenses

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA is refusing to provide defendant's attorneys with the record companies' expenses-per-download in UMG v. Lindor, in Brooklyn. Although the Court ruled last November that Ms. Lindor is permitted to prove her allegation that the damages sought by the RIAA are "unconstitutionally excessive and disproportionate to any actual damages that may have been sustained", the RIAA is refusing to turn over any information about its expenses, needed to calculate the "actual damages". Ms. Lindor's attorneys have filed a motion to compel (pdf) the RIAA to turn over the information. Although the record companies had similarly tried to hide their revenue figures, they later conceded in papers their lawyers had publicly filed with the Court that the revenues were in the range of 70 cents per download, and eventually entered into a stipulation relating the to the actual numbers, which were kept confidential."
Space

Submission + - Antique Viking Technology (smh.com.au)

sea_stuart writes: COMPARED with the latest electronic wizardry, they are fossils from the age of the techno-dinosaurs. Yet the bank of computers that would look at home in black-and-white episodes of Doctor Who cannot be junked. Housed at the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, outside Canberra, the 1970s hardware is now our world's only means of chatting with two robot pioneers exploring the solar system's outer limits. Today Voyager 1 is humanity's most remote object, 15.5 billion kilometres from the sun. Voyager 2 is 12.5 billion kilometres from it. Both continue beaming home reports, but now they are space-age antiques. "The Voyager technology is so outmoded," said Tidbinbilla's spokesman, Glen Nagle, "we have had to maintain heritage equipment to talk to them." http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/thirty-years-tr acking-faint-whispers-from-space/2007/08/31/118806 7368154.html

Slashdot Top Deals

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire

Working...